As more traditional telcos upgrade their networks to support higher speed DSL and even 1 Gbps fiber-to-the-home (FTTH) services it is creating a potential revenue windfall for PON, DSL and cable vendors, says Dell'Oro Group. The research firm forecasts that the broadband access market will reach revenues of nearly $12 billion by 2019.
There are a number of differences within this segment, however. While the research firm expects continued growth in Cable and PON markets, the DSL market will decline during this year. Cable growth will be driven by DOCSIS 3.1 while Chinese service providers will lead the growth in PON.
Looking beyond current GPON technology, Dell'Oro sees emerging technologies touted by Alcatel-Lucent and others like TWDM-PON to gain momentum in other applications like wireless backhaul.
"Next-generation PON technologies are also expected to push demand, as TWDM-PON will likely be used for applications beyond residential broadband, including mobile backhaul and business services," said Alam Tamboli, senior analyst at Dell'Oro, in a release. "Vendors are working to address this first- to second-generation PON technology upgrade path via backwards-compatibility to ensure the PON infrastructure installed today will still be usable in the future. Release